Dead Ringersi (yes I'm on a Croney kick) is notable because it puts the whore play on full display. What's the whore play, you may ask, innocent and ignorant of the ancient ways of this ancient world ? Why, simply this :

The good whore will identify the boss in any social circle, and fuck anyone for as much as possible or as little as available, but him. Won't fuck him no matter what. If it kills her she won't. The boss is used to getting his way yet her breach of social expectation/etiquette is unpunishable, because she's already a whore, ie, worst of the worst. This leaves the boss with no recourse, ie, at her mercy.

These situations end up with her getting married. It's amply treated in literature, this is basically her longshot. She plays all others for the short term and this one as a long shot.

The situation is a social circle of two, who happen to be identical twins. As is always the case, identical twins form a couple, in quite the romantic sense of that term. Certainly more so than any random strangers meeting in the world could ever be, even if oppositely sexuated. As is always the case, one's the servant of the couple, the steward, the interfacer. The apparently "well adjusted", glib and dazzling seducer of the lot. The shortchanged one. The semblant boss, as it's often the case. Meanwhile the other is the master of arcana, the priestly figure interacting with the deep and dark secrets of reality, creating the mana that feeds them both. And feeds them well, I can't scarcely begin to imagine what top gynecologists in a modern metropolis make. Probably as much as they want to make, in a quite literal sense of that expression.

So the whore makes her play and the scene ends bloody, which given their profession and specialisation can't help but curdle your own.

Jeremy Irons is a pleasure to watch. The costumes are elegant, the decors opulent. The film would have been a lot better however if it used a better looking whore than the banged-up refuse of the Canadian 1950s version of Days of our lives.ii At least she doesn't get much camera time.